Labour Slam UKIP on Thanet Family Poverty

We were alarmed to see TDC pass the motion to implement thereduction in the council tax support scheme at the full council meeting on 1st December.

We believe this will be a disaster for the poorest families and children in Thanet, many of whom live in the poorest wards in the South East in Cliftonville, Eastcliff and Newington.

The council tax support scheme rise from 5.5% to 10.00% will hit poor families disproportionately hard, slamming these families into deeper poverty.

Child poverty is higher and wages are lower in Thanet than elsewhere in the South East. The absence of an ambitious and strategic plan from the UKIP administration of TDC for economic regeneration means these families and their children will live lives blighted by poverty.

We are additionally concerned that the planned exceptional hardship fund will operate on a 'first come - first served' basis and that families may miss out on much needed financial support.

We also wonder what the 'exceptional hardship' scheme is deemed to be. Indeed, would our own leader have qualified when he failed to meet council tax payments three years in a row and was taken to court by his own council?